Mariah has her cake...

For 18 days, chefs whipped chocolate, baked sponge and sculpted sugar leaf to create a birthday cake fit for a diva.

But when Mariah Carey was presented with the resulting £5,000, 4ft version of herself, she decided she didn't have much of an appetite.

The American singer simply nibbled on a sliver of icing before leaving the rest to the guests at her 35th birthday party.

The cake, which was made by the chefs at Harrods and based on the cover of her new album, The Emancipation of Mimi, was delivered by six barely dressed male models.

Miss Carey, who turned up two hours late to the party and combined record launch at the Tantra nightclub in London, seemed enchanted.

'She was very excited to see the cake and had some icing from one of her hands,' said a source close to the singer.

'But she said she wasn't really that hungry because it was about the eighth cake she had been given that day.'

Miss Carey, who spent a week in London to promote her comeback album, has attracted more attention for her outrageous demands.

Those in her London entourage of 15 were said to have been under orders to declare: 'Good morning Miss Carey, you look beautiful today', at least once a day.